Do you lift till failure?

After just tearing my quad, I'd say lifting to failure may not be the best idea if you are over 60.

Although, I'll probably be back to lifting to failure one I get healed up.
 
the main issue with not lifting till failure is alot of people, even experienced lifters, can easily mis judge how hard they are going. if i tell you to go to 2 RIR (reps in reserve for people not super into the gym) its pretty easy to undershoot that target and be somewhere in the 4-5RIR range and not accomplish what you are trying to accomplish.

even more experienced lifters can mess it up just by having a good day at the gym. all the stars aligned and you feel super strong that day and you undershoot your goal on accident.

i personally will go right up to failure trying to stay at like half a rep in reserve, the one rep you really grinding out yaknow. like having to take multiple breaths to inch it up. not necessarily total muscular failure where you cant even initialize another rep and get the weight moving but just to where i really think to myself "dam that rep almost got me"
 
Too many variables surrounding who you are, what your goal is, what drugs you're taking, and how much you care for there to be a cut and dry answer but plenty of good info has been provided already. I'm basically just maintaining what I have so I'm currently only hitting each muscle group with 2-3 sets once a week. I enjoy the simplicity of just going until I can't anymore rather than spending brain power trying to calculate and reason with myself about how many more I could maybe do.
 
bbbilly said:


the main issue with not lifting till failure is alot of people, even experienced lifters, can easily mis judge how hard they are going. if i tell you to go to 2 RIR (reps in reserve for people not super into the gym) its pretty easy to undershoot that target and be somewhere in the 4-5RIR range and not accomplish what you are trying to accomplish.

even more experienced lifters can mess it up just by having a good day at the gym. all the stars aligned and you feel super strong that day and you undershoot your goal on accident.

i personally will go right up to failure trying to stay at like half a rep in reserve, the one rep you really grinding out yaknow. like having to take multiple breaths to inch it up. not necessarily total muscular failure where you cant even initialize another rep and get the weight moving but just to where i really think to myself "dam that rep almost got me"

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Spot on! I'm guilty of this myself even when my program calls for a set to failure. You can't just go to failure, you have to mentally prepare for that set.

"If I put a gun to your head how many more reps you think you could do?" I guarantee you most of us would have at least one more rep to give for every exercises 🤣
 
This sounds like a great new pre/post workout. Just Russian Roulette that bad boy and bang out a couple more ego reps!!!!

aepower2016 said:


Spot on! I'm guilty of this myself even when my program calls for a set to failure. You can't just go to failure, you have to mentally prepare for that set.

"If I put a gun to your head how many more reps you think you could do?" I guarantee you most of us would have at least one more rep to give for every exercises

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Yes, at a minimum half of my weekly sets for all muscles are to failure. The other half is 1 to 2 reps to failure.
 
I do both, if I'm doing barbell lifts like press, deadlift etc.

I've done a few in person strength training programmes which used a modification of the Wendler 5/3/1, from his Boring But Big (you can find this easily online, not sure I should share links?).

They used the Up/Down version, with 5 sets which starts at a light % of your 1RM, works to the highest % on set 3, and then back down. I modify this with sets 3 and 5 going to failure.

For example:

  • Set 1 – 50% (set reps)
  • Set 2 – 60% (set reps)
  • Set 3 – 70% (to failure)
  • Set 4 – 60% (set reps)
  • Set 5 – 50% (to failure)
Does it work? For me yes, after a 4 week cycle of the above (playing with the %'s to challenge myself week on week) my 1RM will improve. And I have definitely felt more CNS frazzle doing calisthenics style stuff than I have lifting to failure so go figure!
 
bamagirl26 said:


More like I fail to lift. Gotta work on that

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Meh, yoga and other similar things are plenty for most women. But if a guy doesn't lift, he is considered a boy...
 
The literature says that within a couple reps of failure is as good as failure. The biggest issue with this is that most people are horrible at calculating how far they are from failure. Especially at higher reps, people consistently tend to underestimate how close they are to failure.

The two biggest things by far in growing muscle are consistency and intensity. If you are not consistent you obviously are going to get poor results. If you are not getting enough intensity, you are doing a lot of work for suboptimal results.

Personally I always go for 0 reps in reserve. If you are honestly doing that, you are going to sometimes fail on the last rep from time to time. To me (notice the emphasis) if you are not failing on a rep at least a couple times a week, your intensity is not what you think it is.
 
Mr. Blonde said:


Meh, yoga and other similar things are plenty for most women. But if a guy doesn't lift, he is considered a boy...

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still gotta work that upper body!!
 
Redz said:


Find what works for you. I lift extremely heavy (max on virtually all cable machines) I do over 10 reps sometimes but I’m not going to lift to failure it’s not necessary. As someone who previously has benched north of 500lbs I can tell you the lift to failure is not used by many elites. In fact unless you are power lifting it makes little sense to push to the point of risking injury.

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Yea, I made a big mistake when I was trying to get back to my strength when kids grew up, around 50 year old and started using Westside Barbell for the bench press. While it was much fun with dynamic days, chains, wood boards, max effort days,etc, the assistance work to the failure killed my shoulder! And then I realized what this shit is for the equipped young lifters using a lot of gear!🙂🙂 So, my next journey after recovery was getting back to the old russian powerlifting programs, a combination of sets of 2,3,4 reps with the calculated weights.
 
Redz said:


Find what works for you. I lift extremely heavy (max on virtually all cable machines) I do over 10 reps sometimes but I’m not going to lift to failure it’s not necessary. As someone who previously has benched north of 500lbs I can tell you the lift to failure is not used by many elites. In fact unless you are power lifting it makes little sense to push to the point of risking injury.

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At 63 y/o I can verify this, specially with squats and deadlifts.
 
I lift until failure for every working set on every exercise and then on the last set I pump out partials until I can't move the weight more than an inch or two. No need to worry if you are working hard enough, no need to worry about progressive overload, no need to think about or track anything. I know what the science says but I feel better when I like to total failure. It may be anecdotal, but the results don't lie. I blew up after taking this approach!
 
I am 64. I have always lifted to what I have always called full muscle exhaustion. When I can't finish that last rep I assist with the other arm or have a spotter help I notice the guys at the gym lifting like this are always the largest and strongest.

People that do too high reps will get a lactic acid burn that will prevent them from going to full muscle exhaustion. That's why they have to do double the sets (and time) for the same benefits.

At my age to lift like this and not injure yourself you must have close to perfect form and you need to listen to the pain. When that joint starts to hurt, stop and figure out how to stabilize it with some new exercise.

Younger guys are constantly asking me how at my age how I get the size and strength without gear. They say they can't seem to gain much muscle. When I look at their workouts it is usually lifting high reps or not getting close to full muscle exhaustion.
 
swimmer said:


I am 64. I have always lifted to what I have always called full muscle exhaustion. When I can't finish that last rep I assist with the other arm or have a spotter help I notice the guys at the gym lifting like this are always the largest and strongest.

People that do too high reps will get a lactic acid burn that will prevent them from going to full muscle exhaustion. That's why they have to do double the sets (and time) for the same benefits.

At my age to lift like this and not injure yourself you must have close to perfect form and you need to listen to the pain. When that joint starts to hurt, stop and figure out how to stabilize it with some new exercise.

Younger guys are constantly asking me how at my age how I get the size and strength without gear. They say they can't seem to gain much muscle. When I look at their workouts it is usually lifting high reps or not getting close to full muscle exhaustion.

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Yea, till a few years ago, I was thinking that 6 reps is a cardio!
 
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